


The Last Wife & I

by tentaclemonster



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, La Barbe bleue | Bluebeard - Charles Perrault
Genre: Background Character Death, Background Relationships, F/F, Gaslighting, Horror, Manipulative Relationship, Older Woman/Younger Woman, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 02:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30132897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentaclemonster/pseuds/tentaclemonster
Summary: I entered the household of the Lady Bluebeard in the summer of my fifteenth year.
Relationships: La dernière femme de la Barbe bleue | Bluebeard's Last Wife/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 6





	The Last Wife & I

I entered the household of the Lady Bluebeard in the summer of my fifteenth year. Lest anyone think that I am somehow responsible for the fate that befell me or that I could have avoided it, I shall say that I did so quite unhappily. 

I had other plans for my future, plans that had nothing to do with that great robin blue manor so far away from the village I was raised in or that woman it belonged to. My dearest friend Rosalind’s father owned a bakery. As she had no brothers he could leave it to and she had proven herself as good a successor as any son, her father promised her that when he died it would become hers. Rosalind and I had a thought that it would instead be ours and we would live happily together in the loft above it, baking bread by day and laying together at night with no one to answer to but ourselves. Her father was old, having had Rosalind later in life to a young wife who did not survive the labor, and he was not the healthiest man besides. Though it was ghoulish how we were all but waiting for him to die, neither of us thought it would be long before his bakery was ours at last.

Sometimes now I still think about how sure I was that it would all happen according to the plans we hashed out over hushed conversations while about our sewing, secret notes passed to each other in the street and even more secret visits at night when Rosalind would sneak in through my bedroom window. I think about it and I am filled with rage. I want to shake my younger self until her teeth rattle in her head for her stupidity, her brashness, her idiotic belief that she was in control of her own life. Yet at other times, I want to weep with envy of that girl, how much hope she had, how much freedom. I wish I was still as naive as her. I wish that I still had her hopes, as childish as they were.

Obviously, Rosalind and I’s happily ever after did not come to pass. 

I can no longer remember the exact day my life was taken out of my own hands, but I do remember the circumstances. I was in the kitchen sewing some clothes that were in need of mending when my father came in. I could tell at once that he was excited about something. It was in the way he walked, the eagerness in his step, and how when he looked at me he had the smile of the cat who just got the cream.

“My dear, I have just acquired for you the most precious opportunity,” was his greeting. 

I want to say that I felt trepidation at hearing those words, that I knew even in that moment that something horrible was to come, but to say that would be a lie. I experienced no flash of premonition. No omen came upon me to warn me to shy away from him, to burst out the door and run as far as my feet would take me. All I felt was curiosity. I put my sewing down and listened to my father as he described to me this opportunity he had gotten me. 

He had a friend, he said, who was well known to rub elbows with nobility. My father did not specify who this friend was or how they had met or even what it was this friend did that had him in such company, but my father assured me his friend’s connections were sincere. This friend had apparently been on a visit out to the countryside to a place called Bluebeard House on some business or other and had learned in the course of this visit that the Lady Bluebeard had recently lost the services of her maid. 

“Left without giving notice,” my father said almost gleefully, though later of course I would learn this was a lie.

I had never met this friend of my father’s, but apparently he was aware of me for during his visit he remembered that my father had a daughter and suggested that perhaps I would be happy to take the position. My father must have told him something of me for whatever this friend told the Lady Bluebeard about my character was enough to have her accepting me sight unseen. 

“A carriage will be coming to get you on the morrow,” my father told me as though it was the most wonderful news in the world.

He was so happy that he was utterly oblivious to my shock and despair. 

It took me a moment to snap myself out of the shock and stumble out a protest that I knew nothing of being a lady’s maid. This protest was the truth for the only work I’d ever done was around our own modest house and at Rosalind’s father’s bakery on occasion, experience I did not think would serve me in the kind of dwelling I was sure a noblewoman was to live in. My father knew all of this as well as I, but he waved my protests off like they were little more than specks of dust on my shoulder.

“You’re a smart girl,” my father said. “You’ll learn. And it’s not like you’ll have to do all that much. The Lady has a whole staff for taking care of the home, but she lives without her husband and she has no children. You’ll be more of a companion for her. It will be easy work and you’ll be paid well for it. Isn’t it just grand?”

It was not, in my view, very grand at all. I did not want to be a companion to some highborn woman. I did not want to leave my home, to leave Rosalind and the plans we had together. None of this was to my liking at all.

But the more my father stared at me, the more I realized that I had no other choice. The expectation in his face was clear and though my father had never given me cause to fear him before, I had never given him cause to be displeased with me. I was obedient. I had always done just as he said. I did not know how he would react if I suddenly denied him, especially not about something so important. 

It was not only his reaction that concerned me, however. 

The Lady Bluebeard was expecting me and had already planned for my arrival. I knew nothing of her or the Lord Bluebeard, but I had heard enough gossip about terrible things that had befell common people who disappointed other members of nobility. What if I angered her by refusing the position? Would it make her angry with my father? With this friend of his who had gotten the position for me? I may not have known him but I certainly didn’t want to make things difficult for him when surely he had only been trying to do me a favor. He had no idea that I would not want it and had no cause to suspect I would be anything but thrilled.

More than anything what had me giving in is that I had nothing else to do. If I angered my father by saying no, there was nowhere for me to run to. Rosalind’s father was not the sort of man who would just take me in or allow her to harbor me against my father’s wishes and I had no other friends I was as close to as her. Things would be different if he were dead, if it were just Rosalind who owned their bakery and the living quarters that came with it, but he was not and I felt guilty for almost wishing that he was. He would not shelter me and though I knew Rosalind would fight on my behalf, I could not put her in such a position. If she argued against her father for me, I worried that it would anger him so much that he’d change his mind about leaving the bakery to her and it wouldn’t only be my own future upended by Rosalind’s as well. If she did not have the business to support herself then she’d have no choice but to find a husband and I knew from our many talks that this was a fate Rosalind considered worse than death. I refused to be responsible for sentencing her to it. Even the slightest risk of it wasn’t worth taking the chance.

When I nodded my agreement to my father, I felt that I’d agreed to throw my future away. I laugh at that now, though not with any humor, for the girl I was then had no idea how right she was, but in the moment I was simply distraught. I hardly registered my father’s laugh of joy or the feeling of his arms wrapping around me. All of my will was focused on not giving in to the urge to cry. Not in front of him. Not until I was in my room and the door was locked and there was no one to see my tears fall.

My father gave me the opportunity to flee that I wanted when he pulled back from our hug and told me to go pack my things. I forced myself to smile at him and if he saw my tears, I assume he thought they were tears of joy. I rushed to my room and closed the door, collapsing the moment it shut. 

I don’t know how long I stayed there on the floor crying my heart out, except that by the time I was done my throat was sore as if I had been strangled and the sun was setting outside my window. I had to fumble to find a box of matches to light my lantern with so I wasn’t trapped in the dark. I felt a moment of panic that my father hadn’t gotten me to fix dinner, but I assumed he thought I was still packing or at least that he wanted to give me a break and I was not so willing to leave my bedroom when I wasn’t sure how long it would be before I saw it again. I was not very hungry myself. My stomach was alive with nerves, wriggling away like worms inside of me. I had no idea what the life of a lady’s companion was like, whether I would be allowed to leave to come back home or even write, but I tired to assure myself it could not be so terrible. I was not going to be a slave or a prisoner. My father loved me. I knew he would not send me off to such a life if it was truly so awful.

The last hours I spent in my childhood home are now a blur to me. I should have treasured them, I know. Had I known then all that I do now, I would have run my fingertips over every nook and cranny until I memorized the feeling of the walls, the floor, the texture of my sheets. I would have stood in the center of the room and turned in circles until I had committed every last detail to memory. I would have cried more, probably. Maybe I would have been brave enough to climb out my window and run away after all. I hope I would have been, at least.

As it was, what I did was pack. I had only one piece of luggage and I remember listlessly going through my things and deciding what to take with me, which dresses were nice enough to be worn around a Lady and what knickknacks collected over the course of my short life I simply couldn’t part with. At some point I was satisfied with my selection and crawled into bed. I don’t think I slept or, if I did, I did so poorly for in the morning I was exhausted as if I had not slept at all. 

I had to force myself out of bed, force myself to clean myself up, force myself to dress in something nice. My every move was that of a mechanical contraption gone to rust. I felt absent from myself, as though I was a puppet going through the motions directed by a puppeteer standing above me. I was overwhelmed to the point of being emotionless. My heart could have been absent from my chest in those moments for I truly did not feel anything at all.

And I did not think of Rosalind once. 

This is a fact that, even now, kills me every time I think back on it. How could I have forgotten her? How could I have not thought to say goodbye? Was my shock so great as to make me forget of what it would mean to leave her or was my love really so weak?

When I left my room, I found my father in the kitchen waiting for me. He still looked so happy and I must have done a good job taking care to wash the evidence of crying from my face for he told me I was beautiful and that Lady Bluebeard was sure to feel lucky to have me in her household. He told me he loved me and he hugged me again. He said in a mock stern sort of voice that he expected me to write as soon as I got to Bluebeard House and I nodded absently for I was hardly present enough to speak. All the while I stood there in such a daze. 

I have no idea how I got outside for I still don’t remember my feet taking me out of the house and I don’t remember why my father was not with me to see me off. I do remember the carriage, though. I remember how my breath caught in my throat at the first sound of hooves clopping down the road and how the sound got louder until along with the sound came the sight of two white steeds carrying a small robin blue carriage that gleamed in the sun. 

The carriage came to a stop in front of our house and the driver looked down at me. He tipped his hat and smiled before he hopped down and came over to me. He was a good dealer taller than I am and I had to look up to meet his eyes. I remember being surprised at how young he was, but more than that I was surprised that I actually smiled back. He was a handsome man, but I think in that moment what moved me the most was the clear kindness in his eyes. It relieved me and made me feel less like I was being led to some terrible end. 

To this day, I still don’t blame him for that. He misled me, yes, but I know it wasn’t on purpose and had he known I’m sure he would have warned me away.

The driver introduced himself as Abraham and I introduced myself in turn. Somehow, this did not feel as forced from me as everything else did. Abraham told me how happy he was to have such a lovely lady coming to Bluebeard House and I laughed, surprising myself again. I asked him if there were no lovely ladies at Bluebeard House already and Abraham grinned at me and told me there was always room for one more. He offered to take my bag then and I accepted, watching him as he took it and carefully stored it away. He offered me his hand next to help me into the carriage and I accepted that as well. It was warm in mine and something about the warmth lightened my spirits. I began to feel actual excitement about the journey for the first time.

The carriage left soon after. I turned to look back at my childhood home and stared until it disappeared. It was with reluctance that I turned away to face forward and turned my eyes to the sights passing by. I only turned back again once we left the village itself behind us as it was in that moment that I finally remembered Rosalind – a moment too late, unfortunately. 

I stared at the village disappearing behind the carriage with my mouth agape, my heart hammering painfully in my chest. I felt guilty and ashamed of myself, more than I ever had in my life, but something stayed my tongue when I thought to knock on the carriage roof to ask Abraham to stop and turn around. I wish that I had asked as I now know Abraham enough to be sure he would have done it happily for the sake of me saying goodbye to my only friend, but at the time I was worried that I would be a nuisance. I resolved that I would write to Rosalind the first chance I had and apologize profusely for leaving without telling her and perhaps arrange a way that the two of us could meet. I could not have known that these wishes were futile then, but oh how I wish I did.

The drive went on.

Familiar sights grew into unfamiliar ones which eventually grew into green countryside with only the occasional building or field of sheep to be seen. It was all a curiosity to me at first, wondrous and new, but after awhile all the greenery started to look quite the same and though it was beautiful I couldn’t help growing bored. I do not know how long the journey lasted but it had been so long that by the time Bluebeard House was finally upon us, I found myself startling in my seat from surprise. 

The carriage had been going over a steep hill, but as it was just the last in a series of other inclines just like it there was nothing about it to warn me that our travel was coming at an end. I watched out the window quite boredly as we rose higher and higher, expecting that when we crested over the hill that I would see nothing more than more green stretched before us. I was wrong and so it was with shock that instead of green, what appeared once we were over the hill was blue instead. 

Bluebeard House seemed to pop into existence as if it were an apparition. One second nothing and the next second there. It was a manor house made of stone that was painted the same shade of robin blue as the carriage I rode in, tall and imposing with a slanted dark grey roof on top. It sprawled out across a large tract of land with a courtyard in the front made up of grey stone placed in a mosaic style and a massive forest at the back whose trees were only barely taller than the building itself. The front doors were black and so large that I thought a giant could walk through them without stooping but it was not the doors that drew my attention and then caught it within their grasp.

High up above the doors was a circle of milky white stained glass. There was no complex design to it and no colorful art. In the center of the white instead were only two curved black slashes stretching across the length of it and within the shape those slashes formed were two more slashes of black, smaller and vertical.

I soon realized that what I was looking at was an eye. 

I shivered with disquiet as the thought occurred to me that the eye was watching me back, but I tried to push that thought away. I scolded myself for being silly for it was just glass, after all. Of course it couldn’t be watching me. 

Still, no matter how foolish I told myself I was being, I couldn’t shake my unease entirely. It lingered like a bad taste in my mouth as though somehow even before I’d ever actually stepped foot into Bluebeard House I could sense something was not quite normal about it. I couldn’t pinpoint what that was and that only made my discomfort grow. I was growing increasingly uncomfortable from it until at last the carriage came to a stop. I swallowed my nerves then and looked away from the stained glass image and that did help a little.

Abraham came down from his seat and opened the carriage door for me, once more offering his hand as I once more accepted. It was only after both my feet touched the mosaic ground and Abraham closed the carriage door behind me that the door of Bluebeard House opened and I first caught sight of a woman I would soon learn was the lady of the house.

She was beautiful. Even now that my feelings for Lady Bluebeard are hardly of the friendliest sort, I still cannot deny that she was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. The sunlight shined on her that day as she stood in the doorway. It made her red hair look like it was wreathed in gold and her pale skin glow like ivory. She was smiling at me and my body went warm in a way that it had not since Rosalind and I turned thirteen and I looked at her for the first time not only as a friend. 

I thought that she might come outside and greet me, but she did not. She only stood within the doorway, never setting so much as a foot outside of the threshold, and so once Abraham had retrieved my luggage we both approached the house together. It was only once the lady was in front of me that I saw her eyes were brown and not the green that I didn’t realize until that moment that I’d been expecting.

She introduced herself as Lady Bluebeard then and told me how pleased she was to have me. It didn’t feel as forced as I thought it might to tell her that I was also pleased to be there. This made her smile widen and at last she stepped back and allowed me in. Abraham followed behind me and the door to Bluebeard House closed once more. Lady Bluebeard was no less beautiful without the sun shining directly on her, I immediately took note.

“It’s been quite lonely since Anne left, I’ll admit,” Lady Bluebeard said, still with a smile. “Truth be told, I think the other girls are tired of me interrupting their work to ask for their company but they’re too well behaved to say it.”

“I doubt that’s true,” I replied earnestly before I thought that talking so freely with her might not be permissible. I learned then that Lady Bluebeard had a beautiful laugh, so I did not think she minded.

“You’re very kind,” she told me before she turned to Abraham. “You can leave her bag here and then go get dinner, Abraham. I think I’d like to give my new companion a tour of the house before we join you.” 

“Of course,” Abraham said. He sat my bag down carefully and shot me a reassuring smile before he left us to go further into the house. 

“I hope you don’t mind walking,” Lady Bluebeard said once he was gone. “There’s so much to be done just to get from one room to another. I swear that I curse my husband’s ancestors for how they built this place every day before dinner and then again after.”

I smiled at her blithe words and assured her that I did not mind a bit of exercise. It was then that my tour of Bluebeard House commenced. 

True to Lady Bluebeard’s words, there was a good deal of walking to be done. The halls of Bluebeard House were long, the distance between one room to the next quite large. Lady Bluebeard carried with her a large iron key and would use it to open the occasional door to show me what was inside. A bedroom here, a room filled entirely with instruments there. There was a library that I could have easily fit the entirety of my childhood home in and still have room to spare and another room just as large which held nothing except walls full of small portraits of strangers’ faces, none bigger than the size of my palm. 

We ascended a great staircase and it was there that the Lady Bluebeard stopped us at a pair of doors. She opened one to a large bedroom that she told me was hers. 

“And yours is the one next to it,” she said, and pointed to a door within her own room close to the bed. “They’re adjoining, see?” 

It was through the adjoining door we went next. I noticed that this was the only door in Bluebeard House I’d been shown that didn’t have a lock on it, but the observation was forgotten as soon as we stepped inside. I do not know what kind of accommodations I expected to be given in my new position but the room that was to be mine was just as large as the lady’s own bedroom. It took me another moment to note that it wasn’t just the size that was the same – everything was identical. 

“Is it to your liking?” Lady Bluebeard asked.

“It’s the same as yours,” was my dumbfounded reply. 

“It used to be mine,” she explained. “When I was first married, this room was my room and my room was my husband’s. After awhile I thought there was no reason not to move into the master bedroom myself. I liked the way this one looked, though, so I just had it changed to match. Do you dislike it? We can have it changed if you do, I don’t mind.”

“Oh, no,” I rushed to tell her. “It’s lovely as it is. I just – won’t your husband mind when he comes home? Where will he sleep?”

The lady laughed at this as though I’d told a joke. “My husband isn’t coming home. He hasn’t in the last four years since he left and I cannot imagine him changing his mind any time in the next forty, either.”

The answer both surprised and embarrassed me as I understood immediately that I’d made a misjudgment. When my father had told me Lady Bluebeard lived without her husband, I had assumed he was just away often on whatever business is was lords did. I didn’t realize until that moment that their separation was more permanent. Still, it would be much later before I learned the whole truth of it. 

I tried to apologize but Lady Bluebeard laughed again and waved it off. She took me gently by the arm and out of the room we went. 

“Don’t worry yourself. I’m sure the others will apprise you of all the gossip soon enough. God knows it’s the only way I learned anything when I first came here. Besides, there’s one more thing I need to show you before we can finally eat.”

I wanted to assure the lady that I had no intention of gossiping about her, but I had a feeling that she would only laugh me off again and so I said nothing. 

We descended the staircase in companionable silence that lasted all the way down them and then to a large door we had bypassed when Lady Bluebeard had been showing me the other rooms on the ground floor before. She opened that door then, however, and revealed stone steps leading down into a short hallway that ended at a large door quite unlike any of the other doors I had seen. 

This door was larger than the others, made of black iron instead of wood. The dark face of it glistened in the light of the torches that hung upon the walls of the narrow hall as thought it had been recently oiled, but this was not as perplexing to me as the sight of what was on the door. 

In the center of that black iron painted in white was the same eye I had seen on the stained glass high on the outside of Bluebeard House’s front wall. The eye looked as wet as the iron beneath it, so much so that I was surprised the paint wasn’t dripping white tears down to the floor.

And again, as I looked at this eye I had the same notion as before that it was watching me back. I shivered at the feeling, but if the Lady Bluebeard who still held my arm noticed she gave no indication. 

She also made no move to take us down those stone steps to get closer to the door for which I was incredibly grateful. 

“I want you to take this,” Lady Bluebeard said as she turned to me. 

She held the iron key she carried out to me and I took it with trepidation, fighting hard not to let my hand tremble lest she see and think me foolish. I was worried for a moment that she was about to order me to go down the steps and open the door waiting at the bottom, but she didn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“That key opens every room in Bluebeard House,” the lady explained to me. She was smiling as she said it, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes. “All of them are open to you and you may explore them to your heart’s delight, except for one.”

I immediately knew which one she meant. I did not glance at it, but Lady Bluebeard’s smile turned rueful in a way that made me think she knew how I wanted to.

“You must never go into that room,” she said firmly. “Go into any other as you wish, but that one is forbidden to you. This is the only rule I set for you as a part of my household. The consequences for disobeying it are not ones you wish to face. Do you understand?”

I swallowed hard. Despite how unnerving I found the sight of that door, a part of me still wanted to ask Lady Bluebeard what was in the room behind it. I wanted to ask her about the eye that I had seen twice now both on and inside of Bluebeard House. I wanted to ask what it meant and whether she could feel it watching her, too. But more than that, in the moment I was just relieved that she had told me not to enter it. I didn’t want to. I was afraid to. And to have her forbid me from doing so felt more like she was promising I’d never have to face that fear. Whatever curiosity I felt, my relief far outweighed it.

“I understand,” I told her and kept my eyes on hers so that she knew I meant it. 

“Good,” she said, and shut the door. The moment it was closed her smile reached her eyes again. “Then let’s go have dinner. I’m sure the journey and all these staircases have left you quite starved.”

And so we left that strange door behind and went to have dinner at last. 

Other than the feelings the door and the two eyes I’d seen had invoked in me, my first day in Bluebeard House was not a bad one. Dinner was a lighthearted affair, the food filling and delicious. The lady introduced me to the rest of the staff which was much smaller than I would have thought – just two maids, the cook, and Abraham who I learned was something of a jack of all trades. I had no idea how so few people managed a house so large, but I enjoyed how small the household was and thought it would be far more intimidating if it were larger in size. 

I was comfortable enough that I mentioned writing my father and friend back home to Lady Bluebeard that very night and she kindly told me there was stationary in my room I could use to write whomever I liked. One of Abraham’s duties, I learned, was taking off the post and doing whatever shopping needed to be done in the nearest city.

I wrote letters to my father and Rosalind as soon as dinner was done and resolved to give them to Abraham in the morning. My letter to my father was full of hope and happiness at my new position that was not entirely insincere while my letter to Rosalind was full of apologies. 

_I’m_ _sorry,_ I wrote to her. _My father surprised me with this scheme and I had no choice but to do as he bid. I would have said goodbye to you, but there was no time before the carriage came to take me away. Please don’t think that I left you willingly. I’m sure this position will not last forever. When the bakery is yours, I can give Lady Bluebeard my resignation and come home to you at haste. The lady is kind and she will not say no. Our plans need not change so long as you forgive me this and still love me as I love you._

I told neither Rosalind or my father of the strange door for I did not want to dwell on it or worry them for nothing – or worse, have them think I was mad by raving about doors and eyes. I realized how silly the whole thing sounded the moment I even thought of putting my feelings about it on paper and dismissed the notion entirely.

I went to bed that night hopeful that Rosalind would forgive me. I knew she was not a vindictive person by nature and she above everyone else understood what it meant to follow your father’s expectations. I did truly believe what I told her, as well. I had only just arrived, but Lady Bluebeard had been kind to me, treating me more like a guest than a servant. I saw no reason why my position in Bluebeard House would be permanent. I did not believe the lady would refuse my resignation if I explained to her that I’d already promised my future to Rosalind and surely I wouldn’t be difficult to replace.

It took me longer to get to sleep than it usually did as I was in an unfamiliar room, but the bed was softer than anything I’d ever slept on before, the sheets sumptuous against my skin, and soon enough the comfort of it lulled me to rest. If I dreamed that night, I did not remember it. I woke up the next morning feeling as refreshed as I ever had. I dressed quickly, making sure I had the key I’d been given in my pocket, and knocked on the door that adjoined mine to Lady Bluebeard’s. She called on me to come through and I found her still abed as if she’d only just woken up, yawning as she stretched. 

My eyes were drawn to her body, barely covered in a white nightgown that only came down to her thighs. It was so translucent she may as well not have been wearing it at all. I could see everything beneath the fabric, the shape of her nipples and the outline of her womanhood. I had to force myself not to let my gaze linger on her when she took it off and revealed her bare skin to me in full. She had me help her into a dress more suited to outside the bedroom and I tried to keep my attention only on tying the laces to it, but the warm flush that ran over me was proof that I wasn’t entirely successful. 

I learned quickly over the course of the day that my father was right about what the position would entail. Lady Bluebeard didn’t expect me to clean or cook or do any sort of real work at all, but only to keep her company. We had breakfast together with the others and here I gave my letters to Abraham which he promised to drop off at the post when he next went to run errands. The lady and I sat alone at the table for some time after talking to one another. She was curious about what my life had been like in my village, who my friends were. I told her of my father, of Rosalind and how we bonded over both our fathers being widows, little stories of how we ran amok when we were young getting into all kinds of mischief but taking care not to be caught.

Lady Bluebeard smiled and laughed throughout. She seemed charmed by me and this made me feel even more charmed by her. Despite myself, I could not stop thinking about how she looked in her nightgown or the moment she slid it from her shoulders and it fell to the floor. My mind kept drifting back to it like it was a loose thread tickling at my skin, beckoning me to scratch. I felt guilty when I remembered Rosalind was probably at home wondering where I was. No doubt when my father told her that I’d gotten hired on at Bluebeard House she would feel like I abandoned her, perhaps even think I had planned this and simply never told her, but I reasoned that my letter was on its way and she would know the right of it soon enough. In the meantime there was nothing wrong with finding Lady Bluebeard attractive, I told myself. Rosalind would surely have found her just the same were she there, too.

Lady Bluebeard and I spent much of the day together. We talked, we ate, we went to that great library and read to one another, and then at some point she told me I could go and do as I liked without her. I spent a little time on my own exploring Bluebeard House – though far away from that strange iron door – and some time outside with Abraham, speaking with him as he tended to the horses. He was jovial and sweet and I could feel that we were becoming fast friends. 

The day after was much the same and the next day and the next.

I feel utterly stupid now that it took me nearly a whole week before I realized that Lady Bluebeard hadn’t left the house even once since I arrived.

We were in the sitting room the day I finally learned it. Both of us had been working on some embroidery but at some point Lady Bluebeard had put hers down to stare out the large windows across the room which looked out into the forest at the back of Bluebeard House. She had a wistful look on her face. A look of sadness and longing that I didn’t understand just then.

“It’s a beautiful day,” she commented after awhile. “Summer will be over soon and all of those trees will change color. Fall is much prettier, of course, but it gets so cold here I end up admiring the leaves for about a week before I get tired of shivering all the time and find myself counting down the days until they’re green again.”

“We could go for a walk,” I suggested. “I’ve only been as far as the stables, but I saw the paths through the forest when I was out. We can take a lunch with us if you’d like.”

Lady Bluebeard blinked in surprise at my suggestion before she shook her head and laughed. This laugh was not like her other laughs, however. It didn’t sound happy or amused, but bitter like I’d told a joke that she hated only I didn’t know what the joke was.

“You go,” she said in a flat tone I couldn’t decipher, her face turned away from me to stare out the window. “I’ll stay here and finish this.”

“Are you sure?” 

I felt wrong footed and awkward. Lady Bluebeard’s body was tense where she sat. I could tell she was displeased and I knew that somehow I had made her that way. I didn’t like the feeling even if I had no idea what I’d done to cause it.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Lady Bluebeard said. She sighed heavily as I hesitantly stood from my seat and brought her hand up to rub at her forehead as though she’d suddenly gotten a headache. “Bring me back some wildflowers if you find any, please. They’ll all be dead soon and I’d like to see them before they go.”

I promised her I would and quit the room. I felt strangely guilty for leaving her even though she’d told me to do so, but I didn’t know what else I could have done. I did go outside as she said and I picked as many wildflowers as I could find, resolving that I would at least do this for her. I hoped that presenting her with them would cheer her from whatever mood had overcome her.

Before I went back inside I stopped to visit Abraham. I mentioned the conversation I had with Lady Bluebeard to him and told him that I didn’t think she’d left the house all week. I said how I was worried I’d upset her by suggesting it and I didn’t understand why.

“Oh, Lady Bluebeard never leaves the house,” Abraham told me as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

It was entirely a surprise to me.

“What do you mean she never leaves the house?” I asked incredulously. 

“She never leaves. She used to all the time, but I haven’t seen her take one step outside since Lord Bluebeard left.”

“But – she told me he left four years ago. Surely she hasn’t stayed inside for four whole years?”

Abraham nodded by way of answer and I was flabbergasted at the response. I could understand perhaps staying indoors for a week, maybe a little more, but to stay inside for years on end seemed horrifying. I could not understand why someone as kind, as beautiful and vibrant as Lady Bluebeard would do it seemingly by choice.

“Did she love Lord Bluebeard very much?” I asked Abraham. “Was she that distraught that he left that she just, shut herself in?”

Abraham let out a short laugh and shook his head. “Didn’t anyone tell you anything about him before you came here?” 

“Tell me what?” I demanded.

“That Lady Bluebeard is Lord Bluebeard’s sixth wife. The first five all disappeared, you know? Lord Bluebeard claimed they all just up and left, but none of us on the staff ever saw them leave and all of their things were still here.” Abraham made a doubtful sound that told me just what he thought of that. “Tell me what woman just leaves her home on foot without a word and without taking anything with her.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “Are you saying he murdered them?” 

“Those are the rumors. You say Lord Bluebeard’s name in the city and anyone will tell you he was a murdering shut in who killed one wife after another. Most of it’s just ghastly speculation, of course, but the truth’s odd enough on its own. He hadn’t left the house in years. The other ladies did before they disappeared and Lady Bluebeard did all the time back then, too. She’d spend hours in the woods walking the paths and picking flowers – but Lord Bluebeard wouldn’t even open a window. Sometimes when people talk about him they ask what he did with the bodies if he couldn’t even go out to bury them.”

For some reason my mind immediately went to that iron door. I shuddered at the thought, my heart skipping a beat as I tried to forget it for surely it was a foolish notion. 

“But he did leave eventually,” I prompted almost desperately. 

“Eventually,” Abraham agreed. “One day out of nowhere he tore out of the house like the devil was at his heels. You would have thought he’d never had trouble going outdoors in his life, the hurry he was in. He ordered me to take him as far away as the horses would go and he looked so frightening I didn’t say a word. We traveled for hours and hours and when finally I told him we had to stop, because the horses were going to keel over if they didn’t get some rest, he got out of the carriage and started walking. I called after him to ask where he was going and when to expect him back and he said he wasn’t coming back, that the lady was my master now and he was getting as far away from there as he could. I didn’t follow him and we haven’t seen or heard from him since and well, Lady Bluebeard never went outside again.”

“But why wouldn’t she?”

“Well, I don’t think Lady Bluebeard loved him,” he said like the very idea was preposterous. “If she was distraught, it wasn’t over that. Lord Bluebeard wasn’t the kind of man anyone could love. I think maybe he hurt her somehow and it made her not want to leave the house again and maybe someone knew what he did to his other wives and had proof of it and that’s why he fled in such a hurry.”

“It’s a horrible story.”

“Yes, well –“ Abraham cleared his throat and continued in a more lighthearted tone, “at least it’s worth a few free drinks when I go into the city. Everyone at the pub loves being regaled with the story of Lord Bluebeard’s great escape.”

“And that is even worse,” I said and gave him what I hoped was a disapproving look. 

Abraham only laughed, however. Despite myself I couldn’t help but to roll my eyes and laugh, too.

“It’s not that horrible, you know,” he told me before I went back in. “You never met Lord Bluebeard and you’re lucky for it. You must trust me when I say Lady Bluebeard is far better off without him.”

“It’s hardly a happy ending for her if she can’t even bring herself to go outside when she clearly wants to,” I argued.

“She has time to be happy again,” he replied with a shrug. “That’s more than any of his other wives have. Whatever happened to them, don’t you think they’d switch places with her in a heartbeat if they could?”

His words stopped me short. There was no argument I could make against them and so I bid Abraham goodbye for the moment. 

When I went inside, I presented my bounty of flowers to Lady Bluebeard and was gratified by how pleased she was to see them. She took them from me, her fingers brushing against mine. I watched her as she buried her nose in their petals to smell them and ran her fingertips along their stems like they were the most precious of gifts. She had a soft little smile on her face and it made my heart beat faster to see it. I resolved to bring her flowers more often. If she could not go outside for whatever reason, I determined, I would have to bring the outdoors to her. 

I said nothing to the lady of what Abraham told me for I didn’t want to bring up any bad memories for her. A curiosity burned in me to know more, but it felt tactless to ask and risk upsetting her just to satisfy my own desire of knowledge, and so I pretended her moody behavior before had never happened and that I knew nothing of what caused it. If, in the back of my mind, I kept hearing Abraham say that people speculated on what Lord Bluebeard did with his previous wives, I tried to ignore it and pushed away all thoughts of that door that always popped up at the same time.

The days passed idly by after that. 

Other than my chats with Abraham and the moments I had alone, I spent almost all of my time in Lady Bluebeard’s company. In such a short time my life seemed to begin to revolve around her as if she had become the sun. When I woke up every morning, my first thought was of going to her. When I went to bed at night, I would sometimes stare at the door separating our rooms and think on how she was only a few footsteps away. My eyes lingered on her when she dressed, my body warmed for her when I helped her bathe. I listened to her every word as though my life depended on it and cherished her every laugh and smile. When we sat close together or she took my hand in hers, I would think of how easy it would be to move closer still.

I understood what was happening, of course. I knew my own body and mind well enough to know that I was attracted to the lady and that my simple appreciation for her beauty was rapidly growing into something more meaningful than lust. The guilt I felt in those first weeks was terrible for Rosalind was always in the back of my mind, but Rosalind felt so far away.

And she had never written me back.

Neither, for that matter, had my father. 

I wrote them again and again, sending letters out with Abraham every time he went to the city to run his errands for the household, and yet every time he returned empty handed of any reply for me. I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t comprehend the possibility that the both of them would abandon me. I worried that perhaps something terrible had happened to them, but I thought that surely someone would have told me. If anything happened to Rosalind, my father would have written, and if anything happened to my father then Rosalind would have told me no matter how angry she was at me for leaving her. The thought that something could have befallen both of them was too horrible to consider.

I confided in Lady Bluebeard about my worries for I could no longer keep them bottled up.

“Perhaps they are just giving you time to adjust to being away from them,” she told me as we sat together. Her arm was wrapped around my shoulders, my head resting against her while her fingers ran soothingly through my hair. 

“It’s been weeks,” I disagreed. “How much adjustment could they think I need? I knew Rosalind would be angry with me for leaving, but my father...”

“That’s only the way of the world, dearheart. Fathers send their daughters off and forget about them all the time.”

Her words stung, though they were said gently enough. The idea that my father could simply forget about me ached as though it was a physical wound. I didn’t want to believe it.

“But I’m the only family he has,” I said plaintively. 

“I was the only child my parents had, as well, but they still sent me here to marry a strange man who’d been married five times already when I was little older than you are now. Children always love their parents much more than they love us. One of the hardest parts of growing up is realizing that and learning to live without them.”

My eyes burned with tears. I leaned further into the lady’s embrace. Her arm tightened around me and I relished in the closeness for the comfort it brought. 

That night I wrote more letters to my father and Rosalind. I pleaded with them to write me back, to sooth my worry and tell me they hadn’t just decided they were happier without me. After some hesitation, I told them if they didn’t respond then I would stop writing them entirely. My hand shook as I wrote it and I knew that I meant it as a threat. 

Abraham once again took my letters off to be posted. I waited and waited for a reply. Days went by, then weeks. 

I never got a single letter back.

I kept my promise. I stopped writing them. When the guilt over making such a decision hit me, I told myself that I had done nothing wrong. I had given Rosalind and my father every chance to reply to me and for whatever reason they had decided not to. They both knew where I was and there was nothing to stop them from writing me back or even coming to visit, but they hadn’t. I was sure they had abandoned me and my mind ran wild with reasons why. 

Perhaps Rosalind had fallen in love with someone else. Maybe my father had decided that now that I was gone he could marry again and have a new family, a whole family with a wife who wouldn’t die and leave him to raise a child alone. I tortured myself wondering what they were doing without me and then scolded myself for thinking I was ever the center of their worlds in the first place. How special I must have thought myself that I presumed I could ever be enough for both of them. I should have known my father wouldn’t miss me from how eager he was to get me out the door and Rosalind was so beautiful that of course she could have anyone she wanted so why trouble herself over me?

It would have been so easy to fall completely into my heartbreak were it not for Lady Bluebeard. She seemed determined to keep my spirits high, reading to me and regaling me with funny stories or sending me off to pick more flowers for her outside. We became even closer. More than just a lady and her companion, I thought us to be true friends. My pain over not having Rosalind or my father in my life lessened by the day until I could go days without thinking of them at all and when I did, it didn’t hurt as much to remember. 

Summer turned to fall, the forest losing its green to orange and gold just as Lady Bluebeard said it would, and with the changing of the leaves the weather cooled dramatically as well. Bluebeard House had a fair number of fireplaces, but even with all of them lit there was still always a chill in the air that only got worse as fall crept closer into winter. 

When Lady Bluebeard asked me to start sharing her bed, it seemed only a reasonable request. I had done the same with my father during particularly harsh winters for the sake of keeping warm and though my feelings for the lady were hardly the same as those I had for my father, I didn’t expect anything to come of it except for not turning to ice in my sleep. For as much as I was attracted to Lady Bluebeard and felt a wealth of emotion for her that was not only the thing of friendship, I could not fathom her returning my desire. Not when she was such a beautiful older woman who had experiences I could hardly dream of and I was only a girl still. 

And, for a time, nothing did happen.

Lady Bluebeard and I would retire together every night, curling close to one another under the thick covers. She would run her fingers through my hair or up and down my back as we both waited to fall asleep, but our bodies would not stay motionless once we drifted off. During the night we’d always somehow find ourselves even closer together and inevitably wake up in a sprawl of tangled limbs. Sometimes Lady Bluebeard would be spooning me from behind and at other times I would awake with my head pillowed at her breast. Once I even woke up with my hand under her nightgown, holding on to the bare skin of her hip. The lady had already been awake and she smiled at me as I opened my eyes. I didn’t take my hand from her immediately and this made her smile widen.

I loved everything about it. I loved the feel of her body next to mine and the way we fit together like pieces to a puzzle that was constantly changing shape. I loved watching her in the morning before she awoke, the peaceful expression on her beautiful face, and I loved it when she opened her eyes even more. How she would rise from the bed and slowly make her way to her wardrobe. How she would undress in front of me without a care that I was seeing her nude. How she dressed herself and asked me so sweetly to help with the laces she couldn’t reach.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised when she kissed me, but that night when we laid together so close to one another that our breath was warm on each others’ faces and we stared into each others’ eyes, the last thing I expected was for Lady Bluebeard to close the distance between us and press her lips to mine.

It wasn’t my first kiss, of course, as that belonged to Rosalind and always would no matter if I never saw or spoke to her again, but somehow it almost felt like it was. My heart hammered in my chest as Lady Bluebeard’s mouth moved against mine, her lips soft with the sweet taste of the honeyed tea she always drank before bed lingering on them. When her tongue licked at my bottom lip, I gasped and that was all the invitation the lady needed to slip her way inside and taste me back. 

Our kissing was slow at first, hesitant as we learned how to move with one another, but that soon changed. Lady Bluebeard became more bold. Her hands were on my body, touching me as though they’d touched me a thousand times before. They ran up my sides, stroking me, grasping at my flesh above the fabric of my nightgown, and when they slipped beneath and touched my bare skin, my moan was swallowed up by her mouth. 

The sound I made when one hand slid its way to the slick place between my thighs was much harder to muffle. These were only the first noises of many to escape me as Lady Bluebeard touched me so intimately, manipulating my body into a pleasurable frenzy. 

The movement of her fingers against my flesh and the penetration of them inside of me was so much more than the simple kissing and caressing I was used to with Rosalind, her touch more passionate and expert than the clumsy girlish touches I had known before. I writhed beneath the lady’s ministrations, crying for the desperation I felt for her to continue. My body burned and throbbed in time to the push of the fingers inside of me. There was an ache between my thighs that built and grew, a fire that she was stoking into an inferno with her every touch. The lady’s mouth left mine and my gasping moans were suddenly loud in the room, raising in volume as she licked a path down my neck to my collarbone and then lower still to my breasts. 

It was as her lips closed around the hardened point of my nipple and I felt the graze of her teeth that the ache inside of me became too much and pleasure overtook me. My entrance squeezed down around her fingers which still moved inside me and I could feel wetness spurting out of me and sliding slick down my thighs. I squirmed on the bed as my body fought to make the pleasure last for as long as it could and then I squirmed harder when it left me, the movement of Lady Bluebeard’s fingers inside of my oversensitive body becoming too much, yet I still felt the loss when her fingers left me and introduced to me a new feeling of emptiness. 

A moment later I was still trying to catch my breath when Lady Bluebeard’s mouth found mine again and despite my exhaustion, I lazily tried to kiss her back. When her hand left my body and took my own to guide it between her legs, I didn’t resist. I sank my fingers into her own wetness and let her show me how to move them. She was hot inside, tight around me like her body wanted to suck me in and never let go. Watching her reach her own pleasure and knowing I was the one giving it to her made my body start to ache again. My other hand slid down between my legs and I started to touch myself to the same rhythm that I was touching her. When she came undone, I found my second peak following only seconds behind.

We lay together after in a tangle of sweaty limbs, the both of us panting with exertion. I was almost too hot under the covers with Lady Bluebeard’s own heat wrapped around me, but I was too spent to move and I didn’t care to leave her even if I could. Satisfaction radiated through me, bringing its own warmth. I was happy, I realized. As Lady Bluebeard’s hand came to my head and stroked through my hair, for the first time in weeks I felt as though I was truly loved.

It was a simple thing to fall asleep in her arms, to let her warmth and the stroking of her hand through my hair lull me into sleep. 

That night I dreamed of Bluebeard House. 

In the dream I found myself alone, standing in the entrance room surrounded by a blue tinged fog. I walked through the halls which were much longer and more maze like in my dreams than I knew them to be in reality. I seemed to be in search of something, but I didn’t understand what until I found myself in front of a familiar door. Suddenly there was a weight in my hand and my dream self was unsurprised to find that it was the iron key Lady Bluebeard had given me on my first day as her companion. I unlocked the door and descended down the short flight of stone steps, my legs taking me calmly right up to the great black iron door at the end of the hallway. The white eye stared down at me, beckoning and curious.

And then it blinked.

My dream self was unperturbed as she slid the key into the door and unlocked it. My hand went to the handle and it was warm beneath my palm, a throbbing wetness to it as if I were touching someone’s beating heart. I began to pull the door and heard just the faintest creak as it began to move outward and then --

I woke up gasping for breath, my heart pounding so hard in my throat I thought I might choke on it. A hand touched my shoulder and I flinched before I saw that it was only Lady Bluebeard in bed next to me. The sun was shining through the windows showing me that it was morning. I was still in her bedroom, safe and sound, nowhere near that iron door.

“Are you alright?” the lady asked, the sound of sleep still thick in her voice.

“Yes,” I lied. I made myself smile at her, though my heartbeat was still pounding away. “I’m fine. It was just...a strange dream is all.”

“Mmm.” Lady Bluebeard ran her hand down my arm, leaving raised flesh in its wake. She smiled back at me, a slow and languid expression. “Let me help you forget it.”

Her hand slid from my shoulder to behind my neck and she pulled me down to her. When her mouth pressed against mine, my heart started to race for reasons that had nothing to do with any dream. Her hands moved down my body as we kissed and I made a startled moan when one of them slid between my thighs. Lady Bluebeard smiled into our kiss as her hand began to work.

Needless to say, it was some time before we got out of bed and by the time we did that strange dream was the furthest thing from my mind.

Afterwards, I didn’t know exactly what I expected to happen in light of the new intimacy to my relationship with Lady Bluebeard. I thought things might become awkward between us. I worried that Lady Bluebeard might regret what we’d done together and take pains for it to not happen again. 

I was pleasantly surprised when everything remained much the same. We were still as close as we were before – closer than ever, even. There was no awkwardness, no discomfort, no regret. Lady Bluebeard spoke with me the same as ever, but now she touched me more often and more intimately. Our regular activities were often paused for the sake of kissing and touching one another and there were times she would lead me to some little used room in the house just for the sake of making love to me there. I learned what it was to have Lady Bluebeard on me and inside of me. I learned the feel of her fingers, her mouth, the soft place between her legs as well as I knew the sight of my own face in the mirror. I learned how to be pleased by her and please her in turn and she never seemed to run out of ideas for how we could find our pleasure in each other.

The pain of being cut off from my father and Rosalind faded to nothing in light of my new found happiness with the lady. I would have said I was the happiest I’d ever been had it not been for the dreams that now plagued me every night.

It was the same as that first night Lady Bluebeard and I made love. The same dream every time. I would find myself in the entrance room of Bluebeard House surrounded by blue fog and start to wander the corridors until, as always, I found my way to that iron door with that white eye watching me. I would put in the key, unlock the door, push it open – 

And then I would awake in a fright before I saw what was inside.

It was all puzzling to me and disturbing. I didn’t understand where the dreams came from or what was causing them. I had done my best to ignore that door ever since I came to Bluebeard House, never once straying anywhere close to breaking the one rule that Lady Bluebeard had set down before me. If I had ever found myself wondering what lay beyond it it was simple enough to push my curiosity aside and think of something else. 

But then suddenly, the thought of it wouldn’t leave my mind. 

Every morning I woke up after dreaming of that door, it became harder and harder to forget the dream. I found my eyes glancing at the door that led down those stairs every time I passed it when before I never looked at it at all. My glances started to last longer, lingering until I would find myself standing there in front of it and staring without having made the decision to stop in the first place. Often Lady Bluebeard had to call my attention back to her to snap me out of it, but she never once commented on my strange behavior which I found even more odd for I thought surely she must have noticed it.

It drained me. I started to dread going to sleep at night, but avoiding sleep made me feel no better. I tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, but every time I closed my eyes that door would be waiting in front of me, that eye staring me down as though it was waiting for something as well. 

Abraham was the only one who seemed to notice that anything was amiss. He stopped me after breakfast one morning when Lady Bluebeard and the others had left us alone. His hand gently touched my arm as he frowned down at me with obvious concern.

“Are you well?” he asked. “You look like you haven’t slept a wink.”

“I’m fine,” I tried to lie, but I must have done so badly for Abraham didn’t believe me. 

“You’re not.” His hand left my arm so he could point at my face. “You know, if those circles under your eyes get any darker, someone’s going to mistake you for a raccoon and toss you out the door.”

I huffed a laugh and playfully slapped his hand away. To my surprise, he caught my hand in his and held it. 

“No, really,” he said, squeezing my hand. “If you’re feeling ill, Lady Bluebeard will send for a physician. There’s no need to keep quiet about it.”

“I’m not sick,” I insisted. At his imploring look, I sighed. “I just haven’t been sleeping well lately, that’s all. I’ve been having odd dreams.”

“What kind of odd dreams?”

“The kind that make me look like a raccoon, apparently,” I shot back, shaking my head. I smiled to try to reassure him. “I appreciate your concern, Abraham, but I’m perfectly fine. I promise.”

He stared down at me for a moment longer, but when he finally saw that I wasn’t budging he nodded his acceptance, though he didn’t look happy about it. 

“Alright, just...try to get some sleep.”

“I will.”

“Maybe count some sheep,” he suggested lightly. “I hear that helps.”

I laughed. “If you’ll acquire me some then I’ll try, but you’ll have to be the one to explain to Lady Bluebeard why they’re in the house.”

He made a face at that and after some more friendly chatter on subjects other than my health we soon parted ways. 

I left Abraham’s company in better spirits than I was before, but my improved mood was only a temporary respite. My dreams continued nightly. Thoughts of that door preoccupied me even when I was awake. I began to fear that I would never know what it was to feel well rested again and I knew from the concerned glances Abraham shot my way that I was doing a poor job of hiding it. 

Lady Bluebeard, however, continued to be ignorant of any changes in me – or, at least, she had no interest in speaking of them. I would have felt stung had she not continued to be as kind to me as ever. We still spent most of our time together. We still made love to one another almost every day, though my exhaustion meant that Lady Bluebeard was leading our intimacy more often than not. 

And then one morning when Lady Bluebeard was brushing my hair, I finally gathered the courage to broach the subject directly. 

“Do you remember the first day I came here?” I asked her.

I watched her reflection in the large mirror I sat in front of. She smiled from where she stood behind me, not taking her eyes off of her task. 

“Like it was only yesterday. You were so nervous, but you put on such a brave face. I thought it was quite adorable.”

My face warmed at her words, but I didn’t let them distract me. “And do you remember when you took me on a tour of the house and gave me my key – you said there was one room I couldn’t go in.”

“I remember.”

I took a steadying breath. “I was wondering...I know you said not to go in it and I haven’t, of course, but lately – I admit I’ve been curious.”

I kept watching Lady Bluebeard but her expression hadn’t changed or faltered a bit. She continued brushing my hair, silent for such a long moment that it almost made start to squirm in my chair. 

At last, she stopped brushing and met my eyes in the mirror. 

She smiled at me.

“Don’t concern yourself with what’s in that room,” Lady Bluebeard said, still smiling. “Put your curiosity to rest. There’s nothing worth being curious about, I assure you.”

“But –“

Lady Bluebeard broke our gaze, her smile still bright and happy as she put the hairbrush down and turned away.

“Let’s go to the library today after breakfast,” she cheerfully suggested. “Abraham brought a new book of plays back with him last week and I’ve only skimmed through it, but I think you’ll like them quite a bit.”

I sat staring at her in the reflection, so reeling from her gentle dismissal that she was already out the door before I remembered myself and hastily stood to follow her. We went down to breakfast, we ate, and we did go to the library after where Lady Bluebeard read aloud to me from that book of plays. 

My heart was in none of it. I felt no joy with her. Instead, I watched the lady carefully all day, almost suspiciously so though I hadn’t a clue what it was I suspected her of. For all my watching, however, I saw nothing amiss in her behavior except for the very lack of anything amiss when clearly something was. Lady Bluebeard seemed utterly the same as always while I myself was obviously anything but and yet, she paid no heed to the changes in me. She acted as though nothing had changed at all. Like our short conversation about the room she had forbidden me from had never occurred.

Her behavior was so at odds with how I felt that suddenly I found myself unsure in her company. Awkward where before I was comforted. However gently she had dismissed my probing about that room, I knew the dismissal to be just that and I couldn’t understand it no matter how hard I thought. After all the time we had spent together and all the intimacy we had shared, I couldn’t comprehend what could be in that room that she wouldn’t be willing to tell me about. Even when my mind went to horrific scenarios and I remembered Abraham’s words about how people gossiped about what Lord Bluebeard had done with his previous wives, the concept that he’d just stuffed them all in that room seemed too unlikely to give credence to. I couldn’t imagine Lady Bluebeard taking part in such a ghastly scheme and, I was disgusted to think it, but I thought that even if she had surely it wouldn’t be easy to hide. I walked by that door every day and never once noticed any kind of smell. I was sure I would have if it had been filled with corpses, horrible as it was to even consider the notion.

And as the days went by, things continued in that manner. 

My dreams didn’t stop and I didn’t feel any less exhausted for having them, but any attempts I made to once again ask Lady Bluebeard about that room were just as gently dismissed as before. She’d tell me there was nothing in the room that should concern me, always with a patient smile on her face, before changing the subject to something else. If I tried to push for an answer, she’d ignore me and go on talking about something else as though I’d never spoken. No matter how obvious I was sure my frustration was, she saw none of it or pretended not to. Later she would kiss me and touch me like we were the same lovers as always, coaxing me into our usual intimacy though I began to lack any passion for being with her in that way no matter if my body thought otherwise once she put her hands or her mouth on my flesh.

It hurt me to be treated that way, then at turns made me so angry I wanted to scream. After nearly a month of it, I honestly felt like I was going mad. 

I knew that if I wanted answers that I wasn’t going to get them from Lady Bluebeard and I began to believe that getting answers was the only way whatever was happening to me would be resolved. It seemed obvious to me what I had to do. My dreams always ended the same way, waking me up just as that door began to open. I thought that perhaps if I actually saw what was inside, my curiosity would be sated and my dreams would finally stop. It occurred to me that knowing might only make the dreams worse, but at the time I was so desperate that I was willing to take the chance. What was worse, after all, when you already felt like you were in hell?

My frustration with Lady Bluebeard’s rebuffing of my questions and feigned ignorance of my state of mind lessened the guilt I once would have felt at the thought of breaking my promise to her, and so I decided that I would go to that door and open it at the nearest opportunity. 

Some days after I made my decision, I finally put my plan in motion. 

It was after dinner that evening. Lady Bluebeard and I had retired to her bedroom where she opened for us a bottle of wine, a rare indulgence for her as she’d told me before that she only craved the taste of it every so often and it made her so tired when she drank. I knew as she poured herself a second glass that this would be the night. It was all I could do to hide my anticipation, my worry. The lady and I finished our drinks and retired to bed where I pretended to fall asleep. I waited until I heard Lady Bluebeard’s breathing slow and I knew her to be at rest herself. I waited a little longer just to be sure before I opened my eyes. Seeing that she was deep in her slumber, I carefully got out of bed. I took a lantern from the bedside table along with my key and crept out of the room, softly shutting the door behind me. 

It was silent as I walked down the staircase. The moon was full that night and the brightness of it shone softly through the windows, casting everything in a pale light that could have almost been blue if I wanted it to be. It was eerily similar to my dreams and I felt more than a little disturbed as I made my way closer and closer to my destination. The iron key was gripped tightly in my hand, my palm slick with sweat around it. I thought I could smell the metal of it in my nose, but I might have been only imagining it. 

By the time I reached the first door, my heart was racing. It was silly, I thought, how something as innocuous as a simple door could make me feel so nervous. I told myself to calm down, that I would feel like a fool if I went through all of this only to find nothing strange behind these doors at all. My hand still shook as I unlocked it and my heart beat faster as I opened the door and revaled the short flight of stairs below. It gave me pause when I saw the lanterns in the hall that the door opened into were already lit, but that was nothing compared to how I felt when I saw what was awaiting me at the end.

Just like in my dreams, the white eye on that great iron door stared at me as though it was waiting for something. I stood there staring at it waiting myself for the moment it would blink, but minutes passed and it never did. I began to feel stupid just standing there staring while nothing happened so at last I took a deep breath and began my descent. Though I walked slowly, it took only moments before I was standing right in front of the iron door and the eye was staring down at me.

My hand shook even harder as I raised the key to unlock it, so unsteady that it took me a few tries to actually insert the key into its hole. It turned easily, however, and I inhaled deeply as I took hold of the handle and pulled the door open as fast as I could before I could have a chance to change my mind. I stared into the now open doorway, panting as though I’d just ran a race while my heartbeat pounded with fear. My eyes blinked trying to make sense of what I saw for out of all the things I thought and feared I might find behind that door, I never considered that it could be this. 

There was nothing in the room.

It was a small room that had the same robin blue walls as the outside of Bluebeard House and the same mosaic stone floor as the courtyard, but it was utterly empty. There wasn’t a single window or lantern on the wall, not a piece of furniture, not a speck of dust, not a cobweb or a spider to be seen. Certainly not a pile of corpses like my worst nightmares thought there might be.

I found myself crossing the threshold before I could think better of it, walking until I stood in the center of the room. I turned in a circle, looking everywhere, but there was still nothing to be found. Not on the floor, the walls, the ceiling. There was absolutely nothing at all. I barely had time to process what I was feeling before the fog started to seep up from the floor.

I didn’t notice it at first, not until I felt something brush against my bare ankles. I startled and looked down only to see the floor so thick with the same blue fog from my dreams that I couldn’t see past my knees. My heart thumped hard with sudden renewed panic and I spun around with the intention of running out of the room and shutting the door behind me – 

Only when I turned, the door was gone. 

Confusion split through my urgency. I knew the door had been right there on that wall before. I turned about looking wildly around for it, but on all sides of me all I saw were blue walls quickly being covered by the rising fog. Then something brushed at my ankles again and I flinched so badly that I dropped my lantern to the floor. The light went out and I gave a frightened cry as I was suddenly completely surrounded by darkness. 

I knew the fog continued to rise for I could feel it as it did. It was heavy around my body, brushing against my skin as though it was some great animal wrapping itself around me. I tried to walk through it but it was like moving through thick mud and I barely managed more than a few feet before I had to stop, my muscles suddenly aching too horribly to continue. I screamed for help, first for Lady Bluebeard and then for Abraham, but my voice became hoarse and my screams broke down into sobs. I was gasping for breath as the fog reached my neck, my panic climbing higher as the fog did. I made myself shut my mouth so I wouldn’t breathe it in, but there was nothing I could do to stop it when it rose above my nostrils. 

I choked on it. It was as if suddenly someone had pinched my nose shut and I was unable to breathe. When I tried to open my mouth to gasp, I found myself unable to move my lips and I silently sobbed as I struggled. I could feel my throat convulsing for breath that I couldn’t give it. My heart pounded and my head throbbed in time with it. Though it was completely dark, I started to see sparks of light in front of my eyes and I began to feel so dizzy I was sure I would have collapsed if the fog wasn’t forcing me to remain upright. I was made to stand there as I suffocated, unable to move or scream or cry. When I finally lost consciousness, I was almost relieved. 

I thought for sure that I would die, so it was a surprise when I found myself waking up instead. 

I first became aware of a horrible pain in my chest and a soreness in my throat. It took some time before I realized there was also a hand stroking down my hair, gently petting me. Opening my eyes was difficult, but once I managed I saw that I was in Lady Bluebeard’s bedroom. I was laying in bed, the covers wrapped around me, while the lady sat next to me with a smile on her face more wide than I had ever seen before. Her eyes sparkled with a joy that seemed to radiate from her and I found myself automatically smiling back at her in response to it, though I was so tired and confused.

I tried to ask what had happened, but my voice was so hoarse and my throat so sore that I barely got a syllable out before I had to stop. 

Lady Bluebeard shushed me when I tried again and I obeyed her. Her hand kept stroking my hair, up and down.

“I know how you’re feeling,” Lady Bluebeard said softly. “You’re in pain and confused. You don’t understand what happened to you. I was in the same position as you not so long ago. Lord Bluebeard didn’t bother waiting by my bedside, of course. I had to wake up in that room alone and crawl my way out of it just to find him gone. The bastard was so eager to leave the second he got the chance, he couldn’t bother to explain a thing to me, but...I care for you a lot more than he ever did me. I’m sure once you realize what I’ve done to you, you’ll hate me for it, but I want you to understand that I haven’t done this out of malice. If I didn’t care at all, I would have already left.”

I stared plaintively up at Lady Bluebeard and made a small sound in the back of my throat that it pained me to let out. Dread pooled in my stomach, though I didn’t understand what the lady was talking about. I was confused, but I could tell enough to understand that something bad was happening. 

“The thing you must understand,” Lady Bluebeard told me, “is that this house is cursed. For a very long time Lord Bluebeard was trapped here, much as I once was. There was nothing barring the doors or the windows, no one was holding a knife to his throat forcing him to stay, but nonetheless he couldn’t put so much as a finger out the door no matter how he wanted to. He lived like that for years searching for an answer on how to escape when finally he learned that in order to be able to leave, someone else would have to take his place.” 

I made another pained sound, my dread increasing.

The lady ignored it. Her hand kept moving down my hair, her strokes soft and gentle.

“Of course, it wasn’t that simple,” she went on, letting out a small laugh. “There’s a trick to it, see? He tried to make his other wives take his place. Some of them were willing, some...were not. He wrote out all the details like it was a grand experiment, just...horrible things he did to them trying to make it work. He didn’t realize that you can’t just tell someone to go into that room and have it done, and you can’t force them. The house has to choose them, not you, and they have to go into that room not knowing what it is they’re going to. If anyone else tries, it only kills them and the fog just swallows them up. Maybe they were better off as unfortunately I was the one married to him when he had this epiphany and found myself imprisoned in this place. Maybe being dead is better, I don’t know.”

Her smile dropped. Her hand stilled in my hair. 

“It took me less time to realize what the trick of it all is. My husband’s journal helped, I knew where he went wrong, but I was impatient. I gave Anne too many hints, pushed her along too far. The house didn’t care for her. Found her not to its liking, I suppose. I never wanted her to be hurt, you understand? I just wanted to leave. I cared for her as much as I care for you which is no small amount. I’m sure you’ll think I’m a liar, but I need you to know that I’m not telling you all this to gloat or to hurt you more. My husband didn’t explain a thing before he left and I want to do you the courtesy he refused to do me.”

Lady Bluebeard took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. 

“You must know you are trapped here,” she said, staring into my eyes as I looked back in horror. “You will not be able to leave the house until someone else takes your place. Your letters will not reach anyone you knew before you came here and they won’t remember your name if you send someone to them. I don’t know how it all works, but that is your reality now. All the accounts attached to Bluebeard House are now yours and there’s enough to support you and the household indefinitely, so you needn’t worry about being able to survive. I am...truly sorry for this. If you hate me once I’m gone, I know I’ll deserve it, but if you’re here for long enough – well, then I suppose in time you’ll understand how little you can value someone else’s freedom above your own.”

My heart pounded in my chest and I could feel wetness leaking from the corner of my eyes. Lady Bluebeard smiled softly at me before she wiped my tears away. She leaned down and pressed her mouth to my forehead, the kiss lingering for a moment to long. Where once I would have welcomed her touch, my skin now crawled with the need to be away from her.

She sighed and stood from the bed. 

“Maybe someday we’ll see each other again,” Lady Bluebeard said, “but I’m afraid it won’t be here.”

She turned away from me and left the room without another look back, shutting the door softly behind her. 

The moment she was gone, I began to cry in earnest. My already aching throat burned as I sobbed. I didn’t want to believe a word that Lady Bluebeard had said to me but somehow in my heart I already knew that all of it was true. The horror and despair that consumed me made me pray I was in a nightmare, but when I finally fell into a dreamless sleep and awoke to find myself alone in Lady Bluebeard’s bed I knew that my prayer had not come true.

I felt truly unwell, but I managed to pull myself out of bed and climbed down the stairs on aching legs until I found myself at the front door. I opened it, squinting at the sunlight. For a single moment I still posessed within me a shred of hope that Lady Bluebeard had been lying to me, that all that she told me had been some sick game she was playing with me for reasons I couldn’t understand.

And then as I tried to step outside and couldn’t, my hope shattered. It was as if there was an invisible wall in front of me that I couldn’t pass. I could feel it as solid and real as the floor beneath my feet. I reached out to touch it and found it smooth like stone. I cried out and hit at it desperately, but though it hurt to strike it my hits made no sound. I collapsed in the doorway then, my sobs so loud I was surprised no one had heard me yet. 

It was Abraham eventually found me like that and wrapped his arms around me, trying to soothe me as he led me away from the doorway asking me what had happened, if I was hurt. Painstakingly, he calmed me and got me to explain everything to him. I’m sure he thought I was mad once I finally told him everything that had transpired with the room and all that Lady Bluebeard had told me, but after he searched the house looking for Lady Bluebeard only to find her gone I could see the disbelief on his face. 

He still didn’t believe everything, though, as he offered to go back to my village and bring both my father and Rosalind back to me if necessary. 

“They couldn’t have just forgotten you,” he said softly, smiling to try to reassure me. “How could anyone?”

I did not believe him, but I nodded anyway and let him wrap a thick quilt around me. He had the other maids promise to stay with me while he was gone and we sat in awkward silence with one another for the hours it took for him to return. When he finally did, he was alone, and I only had to take one look at Abraham’s face to know he hadn’t found what he’d expected. It still stung when he confirmed for me that Lady Bluebeard had been telling me the truth for all that I expected it.

My father denied ever having any children when Abraham asked after me. 

Rosalind had sworn that she knew no one by my name and indeed, my father was a widow whose wife had died without leaving him a child.

The pain struck me as if it were a physical blow and I remember sobbing in Abraham’s arms until I finally passed out from exhaustion.

It has been many months since then and I find that the pain has yet to lessen. 

I haven’t gone outside even once and I cannot even stick my head out of a window any more than I could stick it through a brick wall. Abraham has been a rock for me, always taking care to make sure I’m well, but I can’t explain to him what it’s like to be so very trapped as I am here when my prison walls are invisible to even myself. Every time I look outside the windows and see all the signs that summer has returned, I think of Lady Bluebeard. I wonder where she is. I wonder whether she thinks of me. 

I hate her, I think, but the longer I’m in this house the more I understand the desperation she must have felt. How relieved she must have been when I came along to free her from it, no matter how unwilling I was. If this is how I feel after only months, how must she have felt after years? I wonder how I’ll feel if this goes on for much longer. I wonder how long it will take before I’m willing to trap someone here at Bluebeard House just for the sake of my own freedom just as she was willing to do to me to secure hers.


End file.
